The Cake-Part 2

Posted Saturday, September 15, 2007 2:13 AM

Based on my phone calls and talking to Alfred, we decided to set up cake tastings with Rowena (Scrumptious Cakes), the folks at Bee's Knees, and Wonyee (Tomgirl) for the end of May. 

I wanted to have something a little different than the traditional wedding cake that seems to be at every single Asian wedding I've gone to since I was a kid.  I did not want vanilla chiffon cake covered in whipped cream, filled with sliced fruit pieces (usually strawberries) suspended between gobs of more whipped cream.

I may be Asian, but I care about my cake!  Alfred also wants to stray from tradition...he wants carrot cake.  Are we going to confuse the Asians or what!

Ok ok.  So we planned a trip at the end of May to see what LA was going to be like around the time of our wedding (I know, I grew up there, but I've been in the Bay Area for 6 years now).  The first person we went to see was Rowena.  She had a table set up with albums of past cakes and 2 platters filled with little slices of cake, various fillings.  Her white and yellow cakes were very tasty-moist and flavorful, no greasy aftertaste.  She also had chocolate cake, but the 2 of us decided beforehand that chocolate cake would be too crazy for a traditional banquet.  My favorite filling was a pineapple and strawberry w/whipped cream (I told you, it's everywhere!), but I might be biased since pineapple is my all-time favorite fruit, heh.  Unfortunately, her carrot cake was too sweet...even for me.  Once we finished tasting, we talked about design.  The design we had in mind would require our cake to be decorated and covered in fondant.  So for a 4-tier cake, with each tier consisting of 4 layers of cake and 3 layers of filling, for 250 people would run us approximately $1250.  This included 2 flavors of cake.

This felt like a good start.  Onwards to Tomgirl Baking Co.!

We had a little trouble finding her place, and no wonder!  She's literally on the beach in one of the concession stands!  We had picked flavors of cake and filling beforehand and were greeted by a very pretty sight.  On the table was a cake pedestal with 4 fully decorated mini cakes!  There was an almond cake with vanilla custard, a vanilla chiffon cake with lemon curd and raspberries, carrot cake, and a buttermilk cake (think red velvet minus the cocoa and food coloring).  Each cake was covered in either fondant or buttercream and decorated with piping or flowers.  And now I'm quoting from my notes:

Carrot cake = good! (servable to Asians)
buttercream = yummy
uses fresh fruit
fondant on buttercream possible

Each one of her cakes was delicious.  Once again we discussed design and what got me excited was that we could have a buttercream cake with fondant decorations (Rowena said our design could only be done with fondant on fondant) and her quote to us was maybe $1125.  Yay!

Our last appointment was at Bee's Knees and soon after we were greeted (and told to wait), I didn't have such a good feeling about the place.  I checked out their albums and the cakes weren't decorated very cleanly: checkered patterns didn't match up, buttercream didn't seem to look smooth on the cake, things like that.  There was also a wedding cake awaiting delivery in one of their display cases and also made my stomach sink a little.  It was a square cake, the buttercream "dots" weren't lined up completely, the buttercream coating itself was pretty patchy and uneven.  Maybe it was a cake it the works...

Anyways, we get our tasting platter (carrot, almond, white chocolate banana, orange pound cake) and our person disappears again.  The carrot and almond cakes both had an oily aftertaste and we didn't really care for the other 2 flavors.  All the cakes were denser (in comparison to those we've tried already) and dry.  I think the best thing going for this vendor was that the cakes weren't overly sweet.  The person "helping" us came back and asked all the usual questions about design and date.  I answered her questions with lackluster enthusiasm; I was ready to leave.

After a few days and some discussion, we pretty easily reached a decision.  I wrote a deposit check to Wonyee :)  We loved each flavor of cake and filling that she provided.  She cares deeply about the ingredients that go into her cakes and desserts.  She does beautiful piping work, pretty enough to consider changing one of our "eh" cake layers to showcase her skills.  Alfred really likes her carrot cake :P  We just didn't have any bad things come to mind when we were discussing our cake tasting experiences.

More cake details will be worked out soon, as we have our reception site booked and a loose timeline worked out.  Excited!